Taken from his family’s merchant ship at the age of fourteen, Martin Eduardo endured years in the brutal contract labor system on the planet Julian. Now a contract rebellion brews. The precarious – and emotionally costly – safety Martin had found with his seventh contract holder is put at risk by another holder, Jeno Lord Harper, who seeks to use Martin for his own aims. Years in the system have demonstrated what happens to contracts who fight back; Martin knows resistance will prove dangerous. As the contract labor uprising gains momentum, and as he grows more acquainted with those involved in the rebellion, Martin begins to suspect that, although the consequences of disobedience are grim – even fatal – the consequences of obedience might be worse.